The Pilot News - Clark takes over as director

Clark’s lack of scientific background, she hopes, will actually be an asset to the present efforts of the council, whose mission is ultimately the maintenance and improvement of Lake Maxinkuckee and its watershed, which necessarily must include constant focus on public awareness. It should be noted, too, that Tina Hissong, well-known for her intricate knowledge of the lake’s biology and ecology, herself started out with little scientific background. Clark feels that her own learning curve probably mirrors that of most members of the community, who are LMEC’s target audience.
“For a while there’s going to be a big disconnect from the scientific language to the layperson’s (language),” notes Clark. “You’re all going to learn with me! Before I lose that naïveté and start using the big words, it will help me remember that we all have to understand it. If half the words you’re writing in a document for the public show up as misspelled on the computer, and they’re not misspelled, there’s a problem.”
“Educational marketing is my background. You can spend all the money in the world and put educational pieces together, but if people don’t see them, they’re almost useless.”
As an example, Clark excitedly pulls out an issue of Outdoor Indiana magazine from autumn, 2001, and points to an article on the work of the council and the Maxinkuckee wetlands written by former Culver Citizen editor Fred Karst. She hopes to display the article more prominently and is looking into the possibility of a follow-up piece. “This article has blown me away,” she beams. “This will be the centerpiece in our education.”
Clark grew up in Dover, Ohio. She worked for years in the commercial construction management industry and in corporate marketing for some major firms out west. When her parents were diagnosed with terminal illnesses in the late 1980s, she moved back to Ohio to take care of them, and there worked in the property tax appraisal and assessment business. She was enticed to Culver to manage Marshall County’s tax assessment project several years ago. “I drove into Culver, saw the lake and the restaurants and thought, ‘I could eat here!’ So I chose to stay here. By the time I was done with the (tax assessment) program, I was in love with the community.”
As was the case with Hissong, Clark’s focus as director of LMEC is currently on protecting the lake from the dangerous hydrilla plant, which has closed down Lake Manitou in nearby Fulton County. “The council here had one major test survey done around July, 2007. It cost over $6,000. Absolutely no evidence was found that (hydrilla) has reached our lake yet. But you have to be diligent. We’ve already set aside for next year’s budget two surveys, in the spring and fall. The earlier you catch it and can spot-treat it and keep it contained, the better you are.”
Clark stresses that community involvement is key. “For example, council member Dr. John Brenero is a kayaker. Every time he’s out kayaking, he takes the little (hydrilla identification) cards and looks for them. That’s the kind of volunteer help that lake users can give us: fishermen, boaters. You need to inspect anything you put in the lake.”
“We are talking about instituting hydrilla training programs for the lake patrol staff and going into neighborhoods and communities and doing the same thing next year… we’re also talking about outreach to new home owners.”
Clark hopes people will drop by the council’s Main Street office and learn more. “I’ve already ordered a visitor’s welcome sign that will be painted on the front door. All of our information is available as handouts. If people see me in there, we want them to come in.”
Clark feels that the work of the LMEC is having an impact overall, and the outlook seems positive, especially with some recent developments in mind. “The council members who live on the lake made a big effort to go phosphorous free,” she explains. I’m told that three of the biggest companies that work on the lake have gone phosphorous free. The same with Mystic Hills golf course and the Academy. And two of the largest farmers in the area are installing buffer strips along the waterways on their property that go into the lake. That eliminates 70 percent of the chemicals going into the water. Positive steps are coming from everyone that owns land in the watershed.”
She added, “Our donors have been gracious to us in the past, and we hope they continue to be. The lake was here before all of us. We don’t want it to be an unusable thing.”